


Snow

by SerafinaCastaway



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, F/M, Marines, Military, Navy, Romance, Snow, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerafinaCastaway/pseuds/SerafinaCastaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happened every year, always around the same time, always December.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow

It happened every year, always around the same time, always December. She’d sink into her own head, into the memories of her grandfather dying and the drug-induced blur of the week after. She never screamed. She barely cried. She just…

Sat.

She sat in front of a frosted window, legs tucked under her, and a blanket over her thighs. Every so often, she’d drum her fingers over her knees, turning to look out of it at the falling snow, breath fogging the glass until she had to turn to let it clear. She never wiped it off, and she told him not to because it streaked the glass that he always forgot to clean.

Sometimes she’d move. Maybe for tea she’d abandon on the counter, or to go to the bathroom. Sometimes she’d grab a book, but it’d always end up turned over, no more than a few pages turned.

That’s what he tried first, actually. He bought her books, one every day until she snapped out of it, ones her friend the on-base bookstore manager recommended that he knew she’d like or that she’d wishlisted. He’d bring it to her with a triumphant smile, and she’d take it from him with a tiny light in her eyes, and open a cover so new you could hear the binding crack and smell the ink and paper. She’d read a few pages of it, but as soon as he left to cut the light off in the bathroom, or to pick up the tea she’d left on the counter, it was turned over by her feet, and he’d find her in the same place he left her; tucked away in her in-window reading nook, the curtain closed behind her, her arms crossed on top of her blanket-covered knees and staring into the swirling snow.

The next year, he tried taking her out, which ended badly, then sitting with her in the surprisingly warm nook by the window. First he tried sitting towards her, but their legs tangled together and she’d accidentally kick him. Then he tried to sit next to her, but fell out of the small space several times. Eventually, she leaned over, kissed his forehead and combed his hair with her fingers, and smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“You tried, love.”

He left her in her nook for the rest of that lonely December week. She’d leave to eat and bathe and for hospital duty, maybe abandon her tea on the counter, but she’d always end up right back in the window, eyes locked on the snow until the window was too foggy to see.

This year, he’s out of ideas. Three years of marriage, nearly seven years of best friendship, lovers, dating, whatever it’s called they didn’t know what they were either, and he has no idea how to make her smile once a year. So before he leaves for duty the first morning, he turns to her, and sighs.

“Can I help?”

She shrugs. He sighs again. She pulls out what looks like a headband, a pair of mittens, and scarf, all orange and black, and pushes them towards him. He raises an eyebrow, and she smiles, ever so slightly.

"I'm twenty-seven. I can dress myself for the weather."

“Obviously not. It’s going to snow.”

“Weatherman never said anything about snow.”

“It always does and he never calls it.”

“What’s this?”

“It wraps around your head and goes over your ears. Like earmuffs.”

"I don't like earmuffs."

"You're in the Marines, not the Chair Force. Quit your bitching and put it on."

He slides it on and she wraps the scarf gently around his neck, tucking it just enough to keep his neck and chest warm, but not tight enough to make him feel choked. She combs his hair with her fingers, stands on her toes to kiss him, and for once, he doesn’t push her back down to flat feet. Today, she can have what she wants.

And he leaves, fingers wrapping around the scarf to take it off at the next stoplight from the house, and he runs his fingers over the soft fabric, wondering when she had time to knit it.

And halfway through duty, with his hands covered in oil as he checks, fixes, remove, replaces parts of planes and helicopters, it hits him. And when it hits, his shift flies, and as soon as it’s over, he pulls on the winter gear, earmuff headband thing and all, and rushes across town to a little yarn store.

When he gets there, the attendant grabs him and makes him wash his hands. He smiles to himself as he scrubs his hands and watches the jet black oil rinse off of his hands and from under his nails, and when he’s finished, his tanned hands are scrubbed pink, and he pokes through row after row of yarn until he finds the perfect skein, a beautiful mix of blue and green, and he buys it. He watches it wind around the loom with a soft smile, and the woman smiles too.

“Like to knit, then?”

“Me? No.”

“Crochet?”

“No, no, none of that. It’s for my wife.” And he shows a picture of a beautiful black girl in a strapless white dress who’s kissing him, a smile still tugging at the corner of her lips, and the woman smiles wider.

“There was a time that was illegal.”

“And we’d have done it anyway.”

He takes the little bag, and a stamp card for his wife, and he runs next door to a candy store, hunting through every shelf and stumbling over the description of the candy when the shop owner asks what he needs until they finally decipher his own jumbled thoughts and the shopkeeper packages the caramel-filled chocolate candies in a tall box, and they speak a few words about wives and winter and he pays and leaves.

It snows just like she said it would.

When he pulls up, she’s in the nook. And she smiles. Just a little. And he rushes in and swoops into the kitchen, tucking the yarn into one big pocket and the caramel-filled chocolates into the other to protect them from the snow, pulling in cold air and snow behind him. In his rush he only takes off his gloves, so he knocks things together trying to get the tea kettle on, and swears as he burns his fingers.

And then he hears a sound almost too soft to be intelligible; the sound of a curtain pulling back, and her small feet padding across the den. He blocks the door.

“No, no, no! Don’t come in, sit back down!”

She cocks her head to the side, and silently complies. He waits until the tea kettle whistles a little and pours the water into a cup, stumbling around the kitchen as he looks for her teabags. He picks a raspberry one, and sets sugar and whatever else he thinks she’ll put in her tea on a tray with a couple of cookies he came home in time to save and carries them out to her.

She looks up at him, confused, and he remembers the gifts in his pockets. He pulls out the yarn, and she gasps. She runs her fingers over it, inhales the clean scent of soap and snow, and presses it to her face. Then he remembers the chocolates and hands them to her with a sheepish grin.

“I got you these. And that. But I forgot about these. So they might be a little soft.”

She opens the box, and then she smiles, “We can refrigerate them. What brought this on?”

“You were sad. So I got you stuff that makes you happy. I don’t like to see you down because I love you.” He realizes he must sound like a flustered seven year old, but she smiles, so that's okay.

She stacks the gifts on the tray, puts the tray on the table, and pulls him into the nook.

“I just wanted you. No awkwardness, no frustration, you.”

She pulls off the coat, the earmuffs, and the gloves, and he unlaces and drops his boots to the floor with a thunk, and she curls into him, and he wiggles around and then falls, and she laughs. Eventually, they settle, and he twirls a kinky lock of hair around his fingers.

“Tell me about your granddad?”


End file.
